Pauline Kael

alfred completely otm

Now you're doing a John Candy as Orson Welles ham on rye performance (xp)

and Jessica Lange will play Madame Defarge.

does this bio have a comprehensive list of kael's reviews? i always had the impression there was a lot of stuff from the early pre-new yorker days that never made it into her books.

I have a yellowed paperback copy of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang I found on the street, and that's all pre-New Yorker! (Atlantic, McCalls, etc. And isn't that the second book?)

Has donna rouge mentioned if the Pacifica archives have her radio reviews?

Now you're doing a John Candy as Orson Welles

wait did this actually happen? was it some sctv thing?

if o'hehir never understood what she was talking about maybe he's just not a very good reader.

Not always so; her main objection to Goodfellas seemed to be that there's no 'hero' a la Cagney (or even Harvey Keitel, I guess). That makes no sense to me.

but it seems like o'hehir was saying she had no big insights beyond her surprising taste, which is just crazy talk to me.

she also hated gays.

Except those she let impregnate her.

unpublished photo of the kael household circa 1958

http://www.maniacworld.com/mommie-dearest-with-extra-slapping.jpg

My household on Fri night tbh.

morbs looks very pretty there

I do love the image of her changing the marquee at a rep house w/ Wild Turkey on her hip.

4-part interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtGCjGgecOs&feature=related

^^^ saw it last week. I love her comments on Paul Newman.

The famous first meeting between Kael and Sarris over a drink:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wu6Z_RmeXD4/SyvfEcQmPmI/AAAAAAAAAeE/Jbet5NAS3xk/s320/robinson.jpg

"The far side of what? Oh, please."

It's been said before here -- Sarris took their "feud" way too fuckin seriously.

speaking of auteurs (this is for strongo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ehxdlAlHQ

I may have posted this another thread, I'm not sure. But if you skip ahead to the last minute, this brings Kael and SCTV together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDdfD8nHbok

itt renata adler outed as a jealous dude

That Linehan guy who interviews Kael was parodied by Martin Short on SCTV, too.

boy he loves his consonants and sybillants doesn't he

Linehan is beyond legendary here. Short nailed him, especially the five-minute preface to every question.

anyway i finished james wolcott's memoir today. still digesting but there's a lot about pauline kael, sounds like wolcott was her screening sidekick for a good chunk of the 70s. i don't know, wolcott has some perspective on kael but the fairy dust still clouds his vision. for all his un-sentimentality about the 70s clearly wolcott never took the message of "kill yr idols" to heart

he's never been a Sonic Youth fan.

he name-checked lydia lunch and said he liked new wave, though

wolcott's portrait of pauline whet my appetite for the bio; guess i was surprised by how enamored - verging on gushy - he was. but hey, if martin amis took me under his wing when I was 23...

per the Frank Rich review, Kael making loud wisecracks and snorts during screenings should've elicited a "Cool it, auntie" imho.

don't most of us do that though???

hahaha - she does that multiple times in wolcott's book, including at a 42nd street porno

"we" don't do that

"we" just watch The Dark Nought without a thought.

don't most of us do that though???

not unless we want a clout on the head from me, no.

we'd be like the sinners trapped in ice chewing each other's heads, right

per the Frank Rich review, Kael making loud wisecracks and snorts during screenings should've elicited a "Cool it, auntie" imho.

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Sunday, October 30, 2011 10:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah that would be maddening if it was happening in a movie you were enjoying

Morbs: they do! She broke the news of her quitting there on the air without apparently warning anyone in advance (following her Lawrence of Arabia review). She had some pretty choice words for the 'liberals' there.

well, that's a trove that needs to be made available.

also, what megalomaniacal film kingpin named a villain in one of his late '80s productions after her?

lucas! in Willow iirc

in the digital remaster he's changed it to armond white

Armond actually said a few nice things about the Star Wars prequels tho.

haha, naturally!

of course PK's swooning over Newman and Olivier fits neatly with her Kinsey-scale track record...

well, who wouldn't swoon?

her finding Absence of Malice > The Verdict is bothersome.

Not really. He's much sexier playing a stock character in the former.

and she's right about that late seventies/early eighties streak of Newman's >>> the fifties and sixties

Older actors are generally better. Olivier didn't become a really good film actor til he was almost 50.

Too bad she retired before PN's crowning achievement, Nobody's Fool.

God, I just saw Rebecca again two weeks ago and was surprised anew by the absence of a character. He's jumpy, erratic, and irritable, like a man without a script, which makes sense -- Maxim isn't the killer that he is in the novel.

Older actors are generally better

Not hotter, tho, which is what I thought Alfred was referring to.

1998 interview in Modern Maturity:

Jim Carrey has practically kept movies alive the past few years. But most comedians lose it after a while. They go on trying to be funny and it becomes ghastly. If Carrey can sustain it, it would be amazing.

http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/modernmaturity.html